eBook Notes For Tuesday October 13, 2009

What has happened is that science fiction on television has for the most part become indistinguishable from most other television shows which are written for women filled with moronic relationship drama.

Does being on Twitter’s SUL constitute a non-monetary contribution? YES.

Twitter is providing this free service to Gavin Newsom, a declared candidate for governor. Newsom uses Twitter to send his Twitter followers links to his campaign website and to campaign news stories promoting his candidacy.

It would be personally very satisfying to me to see the children who (mis-)run Twitter meet the real world of real-life consequences. I hope they get a big fat fine for this.

We’ve always had abridged versions and “selected-essays-from” and audio versions and made-for-TV adaptations. But in a more open rights schema (say, Creative Commons licensing), there is something thrilling about the idea that dedicated readers – the most engaged of all stakeholders, beyond the original writer & editor – might legitimately improve texts for certain audiences.

I’m both intrigued and horrified by this idea. Several weeks ago I was mulling over how I really hate fantasy novels — I just can’t get into them with their bizarre names and use of magic or other such things. Beneath that veneer, however, could lurk an actually good story. It crossed my mind that such writers might want to consider remixing their own works for fantasy-averse people like me. Take away the weird names and the other things I find too alienating and set it in the present day. The King becomes, say, a CEO or just The Boss, the magic becomes a lawsuit or some other real-world device … and now not only does the writer quickly have a second book out there, but one that might even attract me and others like me.

The vi-spi is cross-platform, but don’t worry if you think you’re not on Facebook, because you actually are. Jason enrolled you when you signed the contract last year, or at least he was supposed to, and he told Sarah Williams he did before he had to retire and Sarah left for nursing school. You currently have 421 Friends, 17 Pending Requests, 8 Pokes, 5 Winks, and 3 Proposals of “Marriage.”

Oh. My. God.

I’ve attached a list of celebrities we think would be great to blurb your book, so find out their numbers and call them up.

Oh. My. God.

Once we get back from Frankfurt, we’d like to see you on morning talk shows like the “Today” show and “The View,” so please get yourself booked on them and keep us “in the loop.”

Oh. My. God.

F.Y.I., we’ve migrated all the photos out of your book and onto the Web page. It makes the hard-copy version cheaper to produce (fewer pages; no photos) and the e-text more “Kindle-friendly.”

Several of the test-drivers pointed out that $199 is close enough to the price of a cheap netbook or an iPod touch and that it made more sense to buy either of those devices rather than a reader that can only do one thing.

A key part of Vook’s appeal is that, unlike a conventional e-reader, users do not purchase a separate device for accessing their vooks. Instead, they choose between a web browser-based platform or an iPhone/iPod touch mobile application. While Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps believes that the web-based option will have limited appeal due to its lack of portability, she points out that “More people have iPhones than Sony Readers and Amazon Kindles put together.”

SV: I hope so, but I have my doubts. But there’s this new thing called a “vook” — an electronic book with embedded videos. This is probably one of the landmarks on the path to the robots taking over the world.